Outer or inner components of customer electronic products, such as mobile phones, digital cameras, liquid crystal displays, DVD players, etc are generally made by either an injection-molding process or a direct press-molding process using a mold. The components obtained by the direct press-molding method do not need to undergo further processing, such as a polishing process and accordingly, the manufacturing efficiency can be greatly increased. However, the mold used in the injection-molding method or the direct press-molding method has to satisfy certain critical requirements such as high chemical stability, resistance to heat shock, good mechanical strength, and good surface smoothness.
Several criteria that should be considered in choosing the material for making the mold are listed below:                a. the mold formed from such material is rigid and hard enough so that the mold cannot be damaged by scratching and can withstand high temperatures;        b. the mold formed from such material is highly resistant to deformation or cracking even after repeated heat shock;        c. the mold formed from such material does not react with or adhere to the glass material at high temperatures;        d. the material is highly resistant to oxidization at high temperatures;        e. the mold formed of such material has good machinability, high precision, and a smooth molding surface; and        f. the manufacturing process using the mold is cost-effective.        
Referring to FIG 4, a typical mold 10 usually consists of a substrate 12 and a protective layer 14 formed on the substrate 12. Normally, microstructures are formed on the protective layer 14, according to a surface shape of products to be formed. The protective layer 14 is made from nickel-containing materials, which is used to directly contact with raw workpieces. The protective layer 14 can be made of a nickel phosphorus alloy. The substrate 12 can be made from stainless steel.
However, such mold will be typically used many thousands of times, after a period of usage the protective layer 14 is prone to cracking or even peeling off according to stress concentration at places where microstructures are present. Thus, a surface of the protective layer 14 will be destroyed and precision of the microstructures will decrease. Therefore, the quality of the glass products made by such mold is decreased, and the service lifetime of such mold will be shortened.
Therefore, a heretofore-unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.